The present disclosure generally relates to integrated circuit devices and, more particularly, to clock trees implemented in an integrated circuit device.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Generally, an electronic device or an electrical system may include one or more integrated circuit (IC) devices. To improve operational flexibility, in some instances, an integrated circuit device may be a programmable logic device that is programmable (e.g., configurable) after manufacturing to provide one or more target (e.g., desired) functions, such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA). To facilitate providing a target function, an integrated circuit device may include one or more logic elements (e.g., blocks and/or gates), for example, programmed (e.g., configured) to operate based at least in part on corresponding configuration data.
In some instances, the logic elements in an integrated circuit device may be organized into multiple logic regions, for example, with each logic region providing a target function and/or multiple logic regions cooperating to provide a target function. Thus, in operation, the integrated circuit device may coordinate (e.g., synchronize) operation of multiple logic regions. Since logic elements generally operates based at least in part on a received clock signal, in some instances, the integrated circuit device may coordinate operation of multiple logic regions by supplying the clock signal to corresponding logic elements using a clock tree (e.g., a clock network-on-chip). For example, the clock tree may include multiple branches that each communicates the clock signal through a corresponding logic region.
However, in some instances, a clock signal may become skewed (e.g., time-shifted or phase-shifted) as it is communicated through the clock tree, for example, due to length of the branches and/or stages (e.g., muxes or buffers) along the branches. In fact, likelihood and/or magnitude of clock skew may increase as size of the clock tree increases, variation in length of the branches increases, and/or due to programming of the integrated circuit device. Since operating based at least in part on the clock signal, clock skew may affect operation of the logic elements and, thus, the integrated circuit device, for example, by decreasing operational efficiency and/or increasing operational latency